That the Toy Party was a resounding success on Sunday is not a surprise. In its sixth year, the annual toy drive delivers thousands of presents to its beneficiaries each time thousands of gay men and lesbians (and others) attend.

The gay elves are still counting toys and collecting cash, but the buzz from the Toy Party & Silent Auction on Sunday shows that organizers continued their Midas touch.

A few thousand people filled an expansive atrium at the AmericasMart in downtown Atlanta for the gay charity event of the season, bringing with them scores of toys to gain admission to the sixth annual rendition of what started as the little house party that could and grew into the massive benefit that it is today (or was on Sunday night).

Like Bobby Framingham, Bill Konigsberg had a secret in high school. Both athletes didn’t know if they could be openly gay and a jock on campus.

For Konigsberg, a longtime sports journalist turned novelist, his choice as a high school senior in the late 1980s was to quit the baseball team, join the drama club and come out. For Framingham, the protagonist in Konigsberg’s debut novel, the choice is just as grueling.

“I had no sense of how you were supposed to be athletic and openly gay,” says Konigsberg, 38. “It just seemed completely incongruous. I thought I could get by in high school, but being in the locker-room just wasn’t going to work.”

The gay rodeo group, which enjoyed a resurgence this year after nearly closing down, is again on the brink of closing its doors. GGRA's president, Brad Bruner, emailed supporters earlier this month with a plea for alternatives, but cited a lack of new members, few candidates for the board and a leadership group of only a handful of people in raising the possibility that the group might disband.

If there's a drag queen Santa and a drag queen holiday caroler, then 'tis the season in Midtown.

That was the scene at Outwrite Bookstore & Coffeehouse on Wednesday for the Third Annual GLBT Holiday Tree Lighting. The event, a benefit for the Atlanta Pride Committee, also included hors d'oeuvres, a raffle and holiday carols from OurSong and Panache from the Atlanta Gay Men's Chorus.

The next time the Atlanta Rainbow Trout is considering a fundraiser, the gay swim group might do well to go the route of the Penn State swim team.

A few swim jocks from the school joined others from the ice hockey team in a recent charity auction. To heat up the bidding, they stripped off their shirts. And to top it off, the five college athletes (photo) offered to deliver pizza sans shirts.

After a four-week runoff tacked on to a long election season, the U.S. Senate race in Georgia is over. It didn't quite end the way gay Democrats in the state -- or national Dems, for that matter -- had hoped, with gay-friendly challenger Jim Martin getting thumped by incumbent Saxby Chambliss in a nearly 15-point win. But it's done.

Also Tuesday, two candidates endorsed by statewide gay rights group Georgia Equality did win their runoff campaigns. Sara Doyle beat Mike Sheffield 51.8 percent to 48.2 percent in a Georgia Court of Appeals race. Tangela Barrie also defeated Johnny Mason for a Superior Court Judge slot in DeKalb County, 56 percent to 44 percent.READ MORE »

He supports gay issues other than same-sex marriage, has the backing of the Human Rights Campaign and the National Stonewall Democrats, amassed an army of gay campaign volunteers, appears proudly at gay events and supported gay issues as a state lawmaker. (His opponent, Saxby Chambliss, received a failing score recently from HRC.)

But if you need more reasons to cast a vote today in favor of Martin, who is trying to prevent Chambliss from winning a second term as a U.S. Senator from Georgia, consider this: Patricia Mock.

The Birmingham mayor who is entangled in a lawsuit over his refusal to hang Pride banners now has bigger problems: He's charged in a 101-count indictment on federal charges that he took bribes to steer contracts to a friend.

Federal agents arrested Mayor Larry Langford on Monday, alleging that he used money from the bribes to pay a crushing debt for flashy clothes from exclusive men's stores, jewelry and Rolex watches.

"Mayor LaLa," as critics have dubbed him, was sued earlier this year by Central Alabama Pride for refusing to allow city workers to hang Gay Pride Week banners on city property during the festival in June. Earlier this month, the mayor asked the federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit.

Social Tuesdays cruised into downtown Atlanta this week and got "Luckie."

That's "Luckie" as in the new Luckie Marietta District remaking a once blighted section of Marietta Street running from the CNN Center into West Midtown. It's now filling with condos, refurbished buildings and nightlife, including Wine Loft.

The upscale wine bar hosted the gay nightlife event on Nov. 25, offering more than 90 wines by the glass and 230 by the bottle. The venue opened recently and offers an upbeat and contemporary atmosphere. Even better when the weather allows is an expansive room that opens onto a large patio overlooking Marietta and the up-and-coming district.

The battle over Proposition 8 reached into the pocketbooks of some 308 Georgians. But could the money have been better spent?

The anti-gay marriage amendment California, which voters approved on Nov. 4, received nearly $72,000 in donations from supporters and opponents across Georgia, according to Southern Voice. The newspaper reviewed donations through a donor tracker from the Los Angeles Times that allows you to find out who gave donations of $35 or greater and find them based on name, city, zip code or state.

Of the $71,579 in donations from Georgia, $60,329 was from opponents of the measure, with $11,250 from those supporting. Both sides on the Prop. 8 battle raised a combined $75 million to fund their campaigns.

But could those thousands of dollars in donations be better spent in Georgia?

The Atlanta group is the 13th affiliate of the organization, which provides resources for gay employees and companies to promote equality in the workplace. More than 500 people attended the event, held inside a ballroom of Twelve at Atlantic Station.

Lesbian radio personality Melissa Carter (photo) presided over the evening, which included a tribute for the National Transgender Day of Remembrance and an extensive program calling attention to advocates and efforts to promote workplace equality.

Justin Ziegler, the president of the Atlanta Executive Network, called on the hundreds of people who took part in two rallies for gay equality earlier this month to harness that energy and turn it into a deeper mobilization for equality.

The call came in a guest column in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution highlighting the energy and enthusiasm he witnessed during the events at the State Capitol and in Midtown on Nov. 15. The rallies were part of a nationwide campaign that touched cities across the country.

Now, I issue a call to action — not to Congress, not to our new president and not to our local politicians, but to all of us living our daily lives within our own communities. It is time for us all to take this energy we created and do something positive. We cannot forget those who came before us.

Now, while we are still feeling that sense of pride and accomplishment from the protests, we must move forward and take the next step. I challenge the next set of activists to mobilize the troops, unite our community and let our voices be heard.

A new coalition of black gay activists on Friday endorsed Jim Martin, the gay-friendly Democrat locked in a runoff for a U.S. Senate seat from Georgia.

The Atlanta Black LGBT Coalition, a new group that says it's committed to a social justice agenda, says Martin's long record of public service includes supporting workplace protections for gays, adoption rights for same-sex couples and increased funding for HIV prevention. The group also credits Martin for supporting a women's right to choose.

"The Atlanta Black LGBT Coalition believes that President-elect Barak Obama brings a new leadership to America and that Jim Martin can bring a new kind of leadership to Georgia,” says Rev. Dr. Kathi Martin, a founding member of the coalition.

You can bet that when Leah Ward Sears, the progressive chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, planned a national summit on marriage, she didn't know it would coincide with a national uproar over same-sex unions in the wake of three more states approving gay marriage bans earlier this month.

Nevertheless, Sears held firm that the summit would include a discussion of the contentious issue when the court's Commission on Children, Marriage and Family Law held the two-day session this week.

Though the event included the Institute for American Values, whose president opposes same-sex unions, a panel discussion Wednesday also included a leading proponent of gay marriage, Jonathan Rauch, who wrote "Gay Marriage: Why it is God for Gays, Good for Straights and Good for America."